RIP Baba Hari Dass - Drunk Monk - 09-25-2018
We moved to Santa Cruz so Tara could attend the private school at Mount Madonna Center. Mt Mad was founded by Baba Hari Dass, or Babaji as he was known by that community. None of us ever got the chance to meet him. Babaji has suffered a stroke before we joined the school and was only attended to by his closest followers. He had taken a vow of silence, and the stroke exacerbated his ability to communicate.
Many of the families and teachers were closely connected, taking on Hindu names and such. One of Tara's classmates, his dad, lived in a bus when the center was being built. He's a good friend - we love that whole family. He actually works at the Ace hardware near our bungalow, where he goes by the name Scott, although I'll always know him by his Mt Mad name Umesh. Umesh often regaled me with tales of Babaji. I read some of his take on the Bhagavad Gita when I was in grad school but I never really got to know him. But I know what he built. Mt. Mad is a wonderful sacred space and I treasure those days and hours I spent there for school functions and such. Tara spent her entire high school there and she also worked at the Center cafe (the Hanuman temple is separate from the school).
Since we joined, Babaji's passing was looming large on the community. I'm sure they are shattered. I feel for them all.
Quote:In Memoriam
September 25, 2018
Baba Hari Dass Founding Inspiration of Mount Madonna Center, Mount Madonna School and Sri Ram Orphanage India dies at age 95.
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Baba Hari Dass, master yogi, teacher, and the founding inspiration of the Mount Madonna Center and Mount Madonna School in Watsonville, and Sri Ram Orphanage in India, died peacefully at home in Bonnie Doon, California on September 25, 2018.
Baba Hari Dass, or Babaji, as he was affectionately known by the many thousands of students and devotees who knew him, was a silent monk born on March 26, 1923 in Almora in the foothills of the Himalayas in Northern India.
Babaji was loved and admired for his wisdom, humility, patience, humor, encouragement and acceptance of all who came to meet him and learn with him. He possessed a profound sense of self-discipline and a deep knowledge of yoga and Indian philosophy. Babaji had a great love of children and a legendary sense of play. While treating everyone with a sense of equality, he somehow managed to form an individual bond with each of his students, inspiring them in spiritual practice, guiding them to self-reliance and bringing out their talents and gifts.
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In 1978 Babaji inspired the founding of Mount Madonna Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences, a widely known and highly respected spiritual retreat and seminar facility in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Mount Madonna Center is home to a residential community dedicated to support of Center activities, which include diverse programs in yoga and personal growth, the Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple and the Mount Madonna Institute. Babaji also inspired the Mount Madonna School (PreK-12th grade) which is hosted by the Center, and is known for excellence in children’s education.
In 1982 Babaji founded the Sri Ram Ashram, a loving home for abandoned children and a Nursery to12th grade school near Haridwar in Northern India. Other centers dedicated to Babaji’s teachings include the Salt Spring Yoga Center and School on Salt Spring Island near Vancouver and spiritual communities in Toronto and Los Angeles.
Babaji was a life-long practitioner and master teacher of yoga who took a vow of perpetual silence in 1952. He communicated with those who gathered around him by writing on a small chalk board. His concise and deeply perceptive style of writing communicated volumes in very few words. He taught that yoga was a way of life that included virtuous living and self-reflection. An example of this is his often-quoted instructions for a living a good life, “Work honestly, meditate every day, meet people without fear, and play.”
As a teacher, Babaji lead by example. Once he was asked, “How do you accomplish everything you do?” He replied, “I have my discipline and I stick to it as closely as I can.” In the many years of construction and development at Mount Madonna Center, he would arrive promptly on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays to conduct classes, take appointments, and lead work crews. Babaji also inspired play in the form of evening volleyball games after work days, music performances, and by writing many comedic teaching dramas about the search for liberation in a world full of illusions and scoundrels.
![[Image: 087.jpg]](https://s3.amazonaws.com/babaharidass-uploads/photos/_medium/087.jpg) ![[Image: Bji-with-rock-crew-in-woods.jpg]](https://s3.amazonaws.com/babaharidass-uploads/photos/_medium/Bji-with-rock-crew-in-woods.jpg) ![[Image: 00000013.jpg]](https://s3.amazonaws.com/babaharidass-uploads/photos/_medium/00000013.jpg)
One of his signature features at Mount Madonna Center are Himalayan style, free standing rock walls that grace the property and create flat open land from steep hillsides. All were designed and built over decades by Babaji and his “rock crew”. They are testimony to his steady commitment for over thirty-five years, come rain or shine as he led the “rock crew” volunteers who quarried the rocks on the property and built the walls. Babaji worked with whomever showed up to help. The rock walls stand as a reminder that everyone has something to give to their community. Some knew how to fit the stones, some gathered small rocks for backfill and some loaded buckets of dirt. He would remind everyone that in community life it “takes big rocks, small rocks, and dirt to build a wall.” Each of us has a contribution to make to community, and everyone’s contribution matters.
History
It is known that Babaji left home at age eight to join a “gurukul” (school for spiritual aspirants). In this early part of his life he engaged in intense spiritual practice in remote areas. Part of his practice was selfless service and to that end he built many well-known temples and ashrams in the foothills of the Himalayas. He was admired and beloved by the local people of Nainital where he built Hanumangarhi, one of the most famous temples of the region. The Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple, on the property of Mount Madonna Center, is built in this same style.
Babaji arrived in the USA in 1971 at age 49 upon the invitation of two American students who had studied with him in India. He was sponsored by Ruth Horsting (also known as Ma Renu), a professor who was just completing her career in the Art Department at U.C. Davis. For a time after Babaji first arrived he resided at her home in Sea Ranch. Knowledge of Babaji preceded him to America through a book titled, “Be Here Now” written by former Harvard Professor Richard Alpert, also known a Ram Dass, who learned yoga from Babaji in India. As more students came to know of Babaji, a group formed at University of California, Santa Cruz led by a young Canadian student of Babaji’s known at Anand Dass. Seeing the sincerity of the students toward the teachings of Babaji, Ma Renu decided to move to the Santa Cruz area so he could be closer to his students.
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In 1972 the Hanuman Fellowship, a non-profit organization was formed to hold Babaji’s teachings and the activities he inspired. In 1974 Babaji’s students began to host regular yoga retreats at a variety of camps in the Santa Cruz area. As the retreats became more popular, Babaji introduced the great Indian spiritual classic the Ramayana as a skit to celebrate the last day of the retreats. From these humble beginnings, the production grew over the next forty-three years to become the largest and longest running production of this classic in the western hemisphere.
In 1975 the members of the Fellowship began to look for land to establish a yoga and spiritual teaching center, staffed by a residential community of practice. Finally, in 1978 Mount Madonna Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences was established on 350 acres of Mount Madonna overlooking the Pajaro Valley and Monterey Bay.
For ten months each year Babaji taught, encouraged, worked, and played alongside the Mount Madonna community he inspired. Two months of the year he would return to India to give guidance and energy to caring for abandoned and destitute children. This lifelong passion began when Babaji was quite young. After seeing a friend who grew up in an orphanage badly abused, Babaji pledged that one day he would build a loving home for destitute children in India. In 1974 Ma Renu started the Sri Ram Foundation for this purpose and Babaji dedicated all of the income from his writings to support a children’s home and school. In 1984 land was purchased near Shyampur Village outside of Haridwar in Northern India and the project began. Two years later, the first children came. Today Sri Ram Ashram is home to more than 60 children and hosts a private school for almost 600 children from the surrounding villages. There are now many children who grew up at the orphanage who, thanks to Babaji’s love and dedication, have gone on to lead fulfilling lives with successful careers and families of their own.
Babaji was deeply knowledgeable in yoga theory and practice in the classical system of Ashtanga Yoga (eight limbed). He regularly taught as well as authored a number of books on Indian philosophy, including commentaries on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the Bhagavadgita, Vedanta, and Samkhya Karika. He also authored several children’s stories, plays and essays of perennial wisdom based on his own experience and practice. Babaji was one of the earliest proponents of the ancient system of Ayurveda Medicine in the USA. Today Mount Madonna Institute offers a M.A. in Ayurveda Studies as well as several credentials and certificates in Ayurveda, Yoga and Community Studies.
Babaji has inspired generations of students. When once asked what his intentions were, he stated simply, “To make a few good people.” He also would say that the teacher could only point the way, or more tersely put, “I can cook for you but I can’t eat for you.” His brief comments written on a small chalk board have become aphorisms to live by.
While his students and devotees deeply miss the physical presence and example of this extraordinary teacher, Babaji’s wisdom, good works, inspiration and influence will live on in the institutions he inspired and all those with whom he came in contact. He was supported at the end of his life by his loving students, family, and Hospice of Santa Cruz County.
A traditional Vedic ceremony will be held on Sunday, October 7th at Mount Madonna Center to honor his life. Donations in his memory can be made to the children at Sri Ram Ashram through Sri Ram Foundation at www.sriramfoundation.org.
RE: RIP Baba Hari Dass - Dr. Ivor Yeti - 09-25-2018
What a tremendous human being. I'm sorry for his passing, but it looks like his works will live on.
RE: RIP Baba Hari Dass - Drunk Monk - 09-27-2018
Quote:Silent monk Baba Hari Dass, who inspired thousands at the Mount Madonna Center, dies at 95
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Baba Hari Dass, known affectionately by the honorific Babaji by many in the Mount Madonna community, brought a lightness to what he did, and a tenderness to those he met. (Shmuel Thaler -- Santa Cruz Sentinel file)
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[url=https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2018/09/25/silent-monk-baba-hari-dass-who-inspired-thousands-at-the-mount-madonna-center-dies-at-95/#comments]
By NICHOLAS IBARRA | nibarra@santacruzsentinel.com | Santa Cruz Sentinel
PUBLISHED: September 25, 2018 at 9:11 pm | UPDATED: September 27, 2018 at 8:20 am
SANTA CRUZ >> Baba Hari Dass, the spiritual leader and silent monk who inspired thousands out of the Mount Madonna Center north of Watsonville, died Tuesday morning in his Bonny Doon home. He was 95.
Known by his students and devotees as Babaji — Hindi for “respected father,” he taught yoga and meditation out of the Watsonville retreat center and school after moving to the U.S. from India in 1971.
Babaji took a vow of silence in 1952, conversing only through his writings and a small chalkboard from which he would dispense terse-yet-profound utterances to those who sought his advice.
Asked once by a Sentinel reporter to describe himself, he wrote simply, “I am what people see me as.” Asked how should one live a good life, he would reportedly respond, “Work honestly, meditate every day, meet people without fear, and play.”
Born March 26, 1923, in Almora, India, in the foothills of the Himalayas, Babaji was said to have left his home at age 8 to pursue what his calling to become a monk, joining a nearby spiritual school.
He is said to have spent his youth practicing yoga and meditation and helping to build temples in the Himalayan foothills, soon becoming a venerated yogi and ascetic in his own right and building a following in India.
He emigrated to the U.S. in 1972 at the invitation of two American students, and took up residence with UC Davis professor Ruth Horsting. His reputation in the U.S. spread on the wings of a 1971 book “Be Here Now” by former Harvard psychologist Richard “Ram Dass” Alpert, who had studied yoga with Babaji in India. A group of devotees formed at UC Santa Cruz and Babaji soon moved to the Santa Cruz Mountains with Horsting.
His followers formed the nonprofit Hanuman Fellowship in 1972 and began hosting retreats. In 1978 the nonprofit purchased 350 acres of rural land north of Watsonville and founded the Mount Madonna Center. The center now sees thousands of visitors each year and is the site of the Mount Madonna School, a private K-12 school with about 200 students.
“Babaji put things in motion around him,” said Ward Mailliard, who led the Hanuman Fellowship for decades and now serves on its board. “He had a way of seeing people’s talents and gifts and helping put them in service to the greater good. That’s how Mount Madonna came about.”
In 1982, Babaji founded the Sri Ram Ashram orphanage near Haridwar in northern India.
Among those raised at the orphanage are Prabha Sharan, 29, and Soma Sharan, 24, who each said they consider Babaji their father due to his impact on their lives. Both women immigrated to the U.S. as children to study at the Mount Madonna School on student visas.
“He taught me how to serve others, whether through laughter or kind being,” said Prabha Sharan, now an orthopedic nurse at Stanford Hospital.
“He was the most selfless human being I think any of us who met him ever encountered or will encounter in their lives,” said Soma Sharan, who works at a social justice nonprofit in Los Angeles. “Everything he did made people better versions of themselves.”
Once asked by a Sentinel reporter about why he chose to remain silent, he wrote this: “First to conserve life energy. Second, to silence the mind. And third, to develop non-attachment to desires.”
“He had the ability to see people,” Mailliard said. “People would come and ask him questions, and he would answer on his chalkboard, and he had a way of cutting to the essence of things.”
More than 100 people had gathered at the Santa Cruz Memorial Cemetery by 3 p.m. Tuesday, where Babaji lay in his final silence, blanketed in multicolored rose blooms.
“Ram Naam Satya Hai,” chanted the waiting devotees, a Hindi chant that translates to, “The name of Rama is truth.” Babaji was cremated later Tuesday per his wishes.
A traditional Vedic memorial service is planned for Oct. 7 at the Mount Madonna Center, 445 Summit Road north of Watsonville, with details to be announced at mountmadonna.org. Those wishing to make a memorial donation to the children at the Sri Ram Ashram may do so at sriramfoundation.org.
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This local obituary covers a lot of the same talking points, but adds some comments from Ward, who I know quite well. My social media has been blowing up with personal remembrances from teachers, students and friends in the Mt. Mad community. Stacy does yoga at Pacific Cultural Center which is connected to Mt Mad (it's actually why we moved here - the farthest bus stop pick up for Mt Mad). They are holding daily 15 min chanting rituals at 7AM every day until the memorial. I'm debating about attending one. Strange to be so affected by Babaji's passing - I suspect it's become a focal point for my post-summer blues.
RE: RIP Baba Hari Dass - Drunk Monk - 10-08-2018
Quote:A celebration of life for Baba Hari Dass, the silent monk
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The sun rises above Mount Madonna Center atop the Santa Cruz Mountains as a Shraddha ceremony for Mount Madonna’s guru Baba Hari Dass gets underway Sunday morning. Shraddha is a Hindu ceremony help the souls, of loved ones who have died, enter the next world safely. Its name comes from the Sanskrit word that means “anything or any act that is performed with all sincerity and faith.” (Shmuel Thaler — Santa Cruz Sentinel)
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By [url=https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/author/mairav-zonszein/]MAIRAV ZONSZEIN |
PUBLISHED: October 7, 2018 at 5:00 pm | UPDATED: October 8, 2018 at 10:26 am
WATSONVILLE — About 1,500 people gathered Sunday morning at the Mount Madonna Center to commemorate Baba Hari Dass, the silent monk, teacher and guru who died on Sept. 25, at age 95 in his home in Bonny Doon.
There were people of all ages in attendance Sunday, many wearing white, who came from the Santa Cruz area, as well as across the country and Canada to pay their respects to the man known to his students as Babaji. There was a serene, somber and intense atmosphere, with a combination of bells, chants and the sound of the wind filling the air.
Ward Mailliard , who goes by his Sanskrit name Sadanand or S.N., is one of the founders of the Mount Madonna Center who lives and teaches there. He explained the ceremony is an ancient Indian ritual conducted after a person dies, or “leaves his body.” There is a period of mourning that lasts 12 days and on the 13th day a series of offerings, known in Sanskrit as Shraddha, are dropped in the water or buried, as a way of letting the person go.
A bamboo ladder conveying the ashes of Baba Hari Dass is brought into Sunday’s ceremony at the lake at Mount Madonna Center. (Shmuel Thaler — Santa Cruz Sentinel)
The ceremony began at 8 a.m. near the center’s community building, where a group of six men of various generations assembled a small ladder made of bamboo. Hundreds gathered in a circle, watching and chanting. One of the veteran members of the community served as master of ceremonies. The man called J.D. – an acronym for his Sanskrit name — explained that the ladder symbolizes the Babaji’s physical body. The ladder was wrapped in red and white cloth, and his ashes were placed between the cloths and then carried to the lake in a procession.
Once at the small lake, J.D. asked that everyone turn off their cellphones. “The idea is to bring a concentration to this most sacred of events,” he said. Babaji “created this miracle we all stand in today.”
The lake symbolized the Ganges River in India, where Babaji’s ashes will be taken and spread in November. The bamboo ladder was then burned by the lake, representing the process of detachment, as hundreds of the Babaji’s disciples sat in silence, occasionally chanting. J.D. and a core group of disciples of various ages sat on a platform by the lake and prepared the offerings that were thrown into the water. They included black sesame seeds, mustard seeds and flower pedals, which he said represent “love and positivity.” Flower petals were then distributed to everyone, who took their turn tossing them into the lake and saying a prayer.
Around 1500 people gather Sunday morning at Mount Madonna Center to honor Baba Hari Dass. (Shmuel Thaler — Santa Cruz Sentinel)
Chella Devoe, 37, was one of those in attendance Sunday. Originally from Santa Cruz, Devoe lived at Mount Madonna for nine months to do a Karma Yoga training a few years ago and currently studies Ayurveda there.
“I have travelled a lot, and I only lived here a short time, but the depth of connections that happen in a community like this, a sense of family connection and community that I think a lot of the world needs,” Devoe said. Asked if she ever met the Babaji – who was already living off the property when she she first arrived, she said, “There was an opportunity to if you wanted, but I didn’t feel I needed to. I felt him in all the people that live here.”
There were altars and shrines set up around the property to commemorate Babaji, including a picture of him beside the little chalkboard he used to write on in the room where he would sit and teach. There was a palpable sense the community was at once grieving the loss of this person they considered a god and who had an intense effect upon them, but at the same time celebrating his legacy and trying not to attribute too much importance to him as a physical being. Cathy Conway, a longtime student who lives at the Center said the Babaji conveyed the message, “Don’t follow the teacher, follow the teachings.”
S.N. said of the Babaji, “He could communicate a lot in few words. He wrote once, ‘without reflection there is no learning.’ In that short sentence he taught me a tremendous amount about teaching.”
S.N. said he will remember his teacher as “a person with tremendous self-discipline, who worked hard for the benefit of the community and people around him, and never expected anything in return.”
I didn't go. I thought about it but I had to unplug the bathroom sink. Or at least, try to unplug it.
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